


disappear your problems

by MonsterParade



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Absolute Breaking of the Law, Background Character Death, Gen, Passing Mentions of Transphobia, and if it crawls back up I'm going to kick it to death again, anyway uhhh, cringe culture is dead my bitches it's so dead, doctor nye has no redeeming qualities you say?, i love it, it's six feet under, the internet must now deal with what i have wrought, which are - Freeform, yes but you don't have all the facts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-24 06:38:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19718224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonsterParade/pseuds/MonsterParade
Summary: No one else wants Doctor Nye? No?? ...My character now(Actual summary: Accidents happen. Mistakes can be made. There there.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This *was* just a drabble on my self-shipping tumblr, but I decided to foist it upon all of you as well, you're WELCOME
> 
> I think I may be *the* only person in the actual world with a weird crush on Doctor Nye, but that's a-okay, because that means I don't have to share B)c
> 
> Maybe sometime I'll add more drabbles +chapters to this mess! But for now, this'll have to stand alone

“Well, what has happened here?”  
  
Silas froze. His chest, heaving with breath, felt tight and heavy, like he couldn’t draw any air, and he felt a cold sweat break out across his skin, his hands still half-raised in front of him, curled into fists.  
  
His knuckles hurt. He’d split them open.  
  
Sick with a wave of terror that held his legs in place, Silas stared down at the man on the linoleum in front of him, crumpled up like a dropped doll, and didn’t even dare to turn his head as long, long legs appeared in the corner of his field of vision. He’d been caught. He’d made a horrible mistake and he was caught.  
  
Doctor Nye circled slowly round Silas’ immobile form, moving like a great terrible spider, and bent down to observe the man on the floor, pressing ashen fingers to his throat and then to his wrist, not yet even glancing up. It didn’t say anything about the split skin and angry dark bruises that swelled the downed man’s face like a balloon.  
  
“Hm. Dead,” Nye announced after a moment, finally turning its head up, and Silas _knew_ he wasn’t imagining the note of approval in its voice. It sounded very nearly pleased, if a little surprised, and that, too, was not surprising. Nye was regarded by the magical community at large as a war criminal, a monster, _and_ a sadist all, and if there was any particular emotion in those yellow eyes right now, it wasn’t much more than curiosity.   
  
Silas slowly, _very_ slowly, took a single step back, and Nye unbent itself from its hunched position over the body to stare at him, steepling its fingers in front of itself. It cocked its head to the side.  
  
“I didn’t– I– I wasn’t–” Silas began, sounding to himself like he was speaking through water, but Nye cut him off before he could even begin babbling by holding up a hand, shaking its head.  
  
“Now I’m not blaming you. I am just saying, this looks _awfully_ suspicious.” Nye said, nudging the dead man with the toe of its shoe. The body rolled a little, the head lolling, and Silas stepped further away and shook his own head furiously, feeling a little numb. “What did he do? This was a crime of passion, surely.”  
  
Silas looked desperately up at Nye, pleadingly, and could see that it was enjoying this, enough to make up for being woken up at such an hour.  
  
“He, uh–” Silas choked a little, forced himself to swallow, and looked away, rubbing his bloody knuckles to distract himself with the pain. “He came on to me. Got grabby. Pushy. Called me a _chick_.”  
  
The man had actually called Silas _far worse_ than just that, but no matter how much he wanted to plead his case, he wasn’t willing to repeat the things that had been said to him in full. It was too mortifying. Doctor Nye was his boss, Doctor Nye had his medical records and _knew_ his situation– but it had never shown any interest in the matter outside of an initial hum of acknowledgement, and it had never protested his pronouns or his identity itself.  
  
Nye nodded its head, and peered at Silas with those pale yellow eyes, squinting. It was either angry or smiling; its mouth hidden behind the surgical mask it always wore.  
  
“I see,” it said, and then paused a beat. Then, “I never liked him.”  
  
Silas looked up at it again. Nye came around the body again, circling around once more before stopping at Silas’ side, just behind his left shoulder, and Silas had to crane his neck to follow it, trying not to hope too hard.  
  
He was a murderer. He’d done a _horrible_ thing. He could probably never forgive himself. But if there was anyone in the Sanctuary right now who could be convinced not to turn him in for it, it would be Doctor Nye.  
  
“I didn’t mean to,” Silas managed after a tense minute. “I was just punching him, I just wanted to get him off me, I didn’t mean to _kill_ him– I’m not that _strong!_ I don’t understand how he– how did _I_ –”  
  
Nye observed the body again.  
  
“He landed wrong,” Nye said, running its splayed fingers over the dead man’s head, “Cracked his head. You are the one who knocked him off-balance, but you did not strike the killing blow.”  
  
It sounded thoughtful, but not judging, and against his will and all better judgement, Silas felt the tears finally welling up in his eyes as he ducked his head, pulling his glasses off with one hand and hiding his face in the other. His shoulders shook, and he could feel Nye behind him, very, very close to him.  
  
The thin hand that suddenly came to rest on the join of his shoulder and neck was so unexpected that Silas jumped, tensing and splaying his hand to peek between his fingers. Nye _rarely_ made physical contact with him, preferring to loom.  
  
The hand on his shoulder tightened, and for a moment Silas thought that Nye had grabbed him to keep him from escaping, to march him straight to the Cleavers– but then the hand relaxed, and the bony fingers dug and flexed, and Silas realized that it was _kneading_ , rubbing his back as if it were trying to _comfort_ him.  
  
The action was so bizarre that Silas dropped his hand from his face completely and turned his head, staring at Nye out of the corner of his eye, and a terrible flush rose to his face unbidden, staining his cheeks red. Suddenly, his concern was less about the very dead body on the floor and more about the possibility that Doctor Nye had finally cottoned on to his gross little crush on it.  
  
Nye squinted again, and this time Silas was _sure_ it was a smile as it rubbed slow circles on his back, cold just beneath the base of his neck.  
  
“ _There,_ now _,_ ” it said, evidently trying for something approaching reassuring, “All’s well! All’s well. No one has to know about your little lapse in judgement,” it continued, its usual high-pitched voice approaching something of a croon, “We can just disappear this little problem! Everyone makes mistakes, I’m sure.”  
  
Silas tried not to shiver, with Nye so close by, but failed _terribly_ with it cooing right into his ear and ended up shuddering all the way up his spine as it pet him, struggling with himself for a few desperate moments before giving in and leaning into the touch, taking comfort where it was given.  
  
“Really?” he asked quietly, feeling like a monster for wanting to hide what he’d done in the first place. He _should_ give himself up, beg for lenience…but the thought of life in the gaoul was too terrifying to bear.  
  
Nye hummed affirmatively at his question, tracing its thumb up the back of Silas’ neck, and Silas sagged like a puppet with the strings cut, nearly melting, his heart pounding. Holy _shit_. Was he _really_ this touch-starved? Shit.  
  
“I’m certain you and I can come to an agreement,” Nye assured him, lowering its voice just in case someone might overhear. “Some of my less… _above-board_ work _has_ been needing a fresh cadaver, and it would be a waste to lose my only assistant over a silly accident. What do you say?”  
  
Silas thought.  
  
 _Years_ in the gaoul, for self-defense and a mistake, or…or a transphobe who just so _happened_ to go missing, and a new understanding with his boss; his boss who was doing an _excellent_ job in obligingly holding him up as he threatened to tip sideways into it. …The choice wasn’t really hard to make.  
  
“We should…probably hurry, then,” Silas sighed, only barely stopping himself from turning his head and nuzzling against Nye’s chin, and although the sheer absurdity of the notion was not lost on him, at the moment it was _very_ far away.  
  
Nye smiled, and reached for the corpse on the floor.  
  
“Good man.”


	2. nightmare before christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's July right now but I felt like Christmas, so hey, here's some unseasonable Christmas. I am the master of my own destiny.
> 
> (Some canon divergence here; dear Clarabelle works for Doctor Synecdoche instead of Doctor Nye, and I have essentially frozen the actual main plotline of the proper books so that I can play with these characters in this space for as long as I want. MY CITY NOW)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess this is just a drabble collection now! There's going to be little to no plot, I imagine, and the chapters will be in no particular order, but I've had a ton of fun writing them so far and I'm sure I will continue to have it!! 
> 
> This chapter is much more lighthearted than the last one, but from now on, any necessary content warnings will be placed here before the chapter starts, just in case. I guess this is just a thing now!

Silas had thought about this long and hard. Every possibility had been accounted for. Probably.  
  
Gift-giving was always a delicate art, at least to him-- and for his first holiday season working at the Sanctuary, he was determined to impress his fellow staff. He'd been planning for _weeks_. And it wasn't much, nothing too big, but it was the best he could do with what he had.  
  
He'd made a cake. White cake, from a box mix, made in several thin layers stacked on top of each other. In between each layer he'd slathered strawberry frosting, and then gone over the whole thing with vanilla. The frosting layer wasn't perfectly smooth, and it was sticky, a little rough, and slightly lopsided, but it was still more than passable, he thought, especially after he'd added all the sprinkles. He'd topped it with chocolate-dipped strawberries in a ring along the top of it, chilled it overnight in the fridge, and carried it into work the next morning in a plain white box.  
  
The holiday decorations weren't too obvious in the Sanctuary. This was a place of business, after all.  
  
The medical wing in particular stayed largely white and clinical-- for both safety and sanity's sake, what with the constant flow of patients with both natural and magical maladies-- but someone had dared to hang up a small strand of pretty colored lights in one section of the hallway, and most of the doctors had at least decorated their desks with a little novelty tree or menorah or two. The changes were small, but they were nice, nonetheless.  
  
There were no changes to Doctor Nye's workspace.  
  
Unsurprising, to everyone who had ever met the doctor; but it was not much given to flights of fancy that didn't involve grotesque bodily harm, and even though it was now employed in a respectable and _legal_ manner by the city of Roarhaven, Nye still did not seem as though it had any interest in joining the festivities. Silas had been wondering recently if the Crenga _had_ any holidays of their own, back wherever they came from.  
  
At least the doctor hadn't been tearing anything down.  
  
  
  
  
"--Good morning, Clarabelle," Silas said, as he slowed to a stop underneath a ladder in the hallway. He scooted through to the other side, keeping his concerns about the potential flow of traffic to himself, and looked up at the woman at the top of it as she hammered away at the wall, hanging up a series of colorful socks in a disparity of sizes. Her blue hair was frizzy from the winter static in the air, and she had a bunch of nails held between her front teeth. Her knit cap dangled from the top of the step beneath her feet, abandoned for the moment.  
  
Clarabelle's eyes brightened when she saw him.  
  
"Shilash!" she exclaimed through the nails in her mouth, waving with the hand that held the hammer and bobbling concerningly about on her perch. "Happy Chrishmash!"  
  
Silas carefully stepped back a little more, out of the path of the hammer should she wave too hard and send it flying, and grinned up at her, holding the cake box in his arms in a solid two-handed grip.  
  
"Merry Christmas, Clarabelle. Whatcha doing? Hanging stockings?" he asked.  
  
Clarabelle finished hanging the sock currently in her hand and then spat out the nails into her palm to speak.  
  
"Yes. Did you know people used to put oranges and things in the toes of their stockings?"  
  
"Is that what those lumps are?"  
  
"Yes! Well, some of them. I ran out of oranges already, so some of them got pears, and that one has a bunch of bananas. Does it look nice?"  
  
It did not. None of the socks were the same size, most of them had conflicting print or patterns, and not one of them matched another on the wall. They also bulged oddly, from the various fruits that had been stuck inside them. Silas' grin grew, and Clarabelle matched it.  
  
"I _love_ it," he said, and meant it. "But, um, does Doctor Synecdoche know what you're doing? Are you allowed to be out here right now?"  
  
The guilty look on Clarabelle's face gave him his answer before she could.  
  
"Yes," she said, guiltily. Silas raised his eyebrows at her, giving her a minute, and then she blew out a breath and stuck out her lips and climbed down off the ladder, Silas hurrying to spot her in case she fell. He supposed that in a choice between saving his cake or Clarabelle, he would choose the latter. "...No," Clarabelle finally admitted as she reached solid ground. "But she was just doing paperwork, and no one's been in here yet this morning, so I thought I might as well come out here and decorate while I had some extra time. What's that you're holding?"  
  
Silas held the box out to her, and flipped the lid open to show her.  
  
"I made a cake!"  
  
"Oh, it looks yummy! Is it for your lunch?"  
  
Silas smiled and shook his head.  
  
"It's a present for all of you guys! All the doctors and nurses and folks. I'm taking it to the break room, but do you want a strawberry right now?" he offered, and watched Clarabelle bounce up onto her toes.  
  
"Oh, yes, I haven't had breakfast yet."  
  
Clarabelle took a strawberry, popped it into her mouth, and smiled at him, patting him on the chin. Silas chuckled and bid her good morning as he watched her swan away, back in the direction of Doctor Synecdoche's office.  
  
\----  
  
Phase two was the presents. Or, really, one present in _particular_ \-- Silas had purchased a couple, each for a few different people in the medical wing, including sweet Clarabelle, but aside from the latter's gift they were, in fact, actually a smokescreen. Just to avoid showing too much favor to the individual he was hoping to impress.  
  
Silas hovered in the hallway, one box left in his arms, the rest of his gifts already handed out-- whereas the rest of the presents had been wrapped up in traditional Christmas papers, all red and blue and glittery, this one was done up neatly in a simple black and white, with a small red ribbon curl, and Silas could only hope its recipient wouldn't take offense if it recognized the sparse print on the paper as a certain Tim Burton film, the main character of which reminded Silas of the gift-ee quite a lot. It was the lanky limbs, he imagined.  
  
Silas drummed the box lightly with his fingers and ducked his head, gathering his nerve.  
  
Nye's office door was open, and he could hear it puttering around inside.  
  
Feeling a little queasy, taking a deep breath, Silas raised his head and tucked the box under one arm and slipped into the room as casually as he could muster, not even glancing at Nye. The doctor didn't look at him either, busy organizing its vast collection of scalpels and knives _just_ so, so Silas scooched past it with a respectful nod and tried not to blush, already embarrassed. He made his way to the center of the room, making sure they were alone, and then waited a respectable distance away with the present in his hands while he waited for Nye to turn around.  
  
It took a minute, but eventually Nye took notice of the unusual silence behind it and turned its head.  
  
Silas hefted the present, and tried for a smile.  
  
"Happy holidays, Doctor."  
  
Doctor Nye stared at Silas like he had just grown a second head, and Silas chewed his lip and glanced away at the floor until the doctor finally blinked, turning around in full to face him.  
  
"What?" it asked. Silas held the present out further, and with a little more force, too embarrassed to quite look it in the eyes.  
  
"Happy holidays!" he repeated. "It's a Christmas present! Or Hanukkah, if you prefer. It's for you!"  
  
Silas glanced up, and Nye gave him a transparently boggled look as it reached out and took the present, holding it lightly as though it were almost wary. Its thin fingers mapped out the paper, feeling the edges, and it gave the box a slight shake, listening.  
  
"...A Christmas present," Nye repeated in its breathy voice, tipping its head, "For _me_."  
  
It didn't sound happy or flattered to receive it, but neither had it yet shoved it back in Silas' face, so he _supposed_ he would count that as a plus.  
  
"Yes!"  
  
"I don't celebrate Christmas."  
  
Silas had thought it might say something like that. He'd thought about this conversation a lot. He smiled properly now.  
  
"You don't have to actually celebrate it for someone to give you a Christmas present," he wheedled, "The holidays are just more of an excuse!"  
  
Nye narrowed its small yellow eyes, and began to pick at the paper.  
  
"Curious. ...If there is a bomb in here, I can guarantee you there will be repercussions." it warned him, and Silas barked a startled laugh.  
  
"Wha-- uh, no! Oh my god, _no_ , it's not-- I would _never_ do that." he promised, and shook his head. Nye gave him a curious look, but it obviously decided to take his word for it, because it turned back round to set the present down on its tray of medical instruments and picked up a scalpel, ignoring the folds in the wrapping paper where one would tear and slicing the box thinly across the top instead. Silas scooted closer, hopeful, and Nye lifted its elbow and allowed him to watch.  
  
Tissue paper rustled.  
  
Silas already knew what was in the box, but he looked anyway.  
  
Folded up carefully underneath the colorful tissue paper was a length of knitted fabric, and wrapped in bubble wrap beside that was a nice sturdy mug, with something printed on it that couldn't be made out through its wrappings. Nye blinked, squinted, and then lifted the fabric from the box.  
  
"A scarf." it said.  
  
"A scarf," Silas confirmed. "Because it's winter and all, you know, and I know you don't go outside much, but in the event that you _do_ , uh-- now you have a scarf."  
  
Nye stretched the scarf out between its hands, looking it over, and Silas took the brief moment of distraction to scrub his cheeks, feeling them warm with embarrassment. He felt _stupid_ , but then, he'd known he would have. He'd just done it anyway.  
  
"It's crooked," Nye noted after a moment, and Silas chuckled and ran a hand through his hair. "Did you make this yourself?"  
  
"Uh, yeah, sorry. I'm not... _great_ at knitting. But if you wear it no one will really be able to tell."  
  
Doctor Nye looked down at the crooked scarf, at the dark red fabric and the clumsy stitches, and then hummed a single note under its breath before putting it aside, moving onto the mug. Silas hadn't come into this expecting thanks, and so was not too terribly disappointed. Nye unrolled the bubble wrap.  
  
And laughed. Just a short laugh, a sharp breath of amusement and surprise, but it trailed off into that breathy giggle which had unsettled many a person before him and Silas' eyebrows shot up, unbidden, as he _beamed_.  
  
"Do you like it?" he asked. Nye tapped the mug with a finger and squinted at Silas, bent over him, like a strange, massive insect. He was _pretty_ sure it was smiling.  
  
"A suitably morbid trinket, yes," it said, and Silas tried not to feel too proud of himself for his small bit of work. Etsy had saved the holiday season once again.  
  
The mug was white, big and sturdy, and printed on it was a picture of a human heart surrounded by blood splatter, with words framing the picture from the top and bottom; "YOU'VE STOLEN MY HEART", it read, in jagged horror movie font. Silas was pretty sure the mug had been intended as a _Valentine's Day_ sort of gift, for the morbid sort of folks, but given the doctor's disposition, he had thought it would suit it nicely.  
  
"Now you don't have to have your morning coffee out of those little paper cups!"  
  
Nye looked at the mug again, chuckled once more, and then stunned Silas by patting his head, its cold touch tousling his hair.  
  
"I didn't get you anything," it informed him as it turned back around, pulling its hand away from Silas again and grabbing the scarf as it passed, but Silas fought back a giddy laugh and just reached up to smooth his hair back down, unreasonably pleased. "You'll forgive me, I'm sure."  
  
"Of course! Happy holidays, Doctor," Silas replied, somehow simultaneously relieved and disappointed that Nye had _still_ managed to remain oblivious to his hamfisted attempts to flirt with it. He'd honestly thought the mug would have been a little _too_ on-the-nose...but ah, well. Nothing ever ventured, nothing ever gained.  
  
"Yes, happy holidays. Now go collect those blood samples."  
  
The other doctors were going to lose their _minds_.


	3. affirmations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a bad person, but a good doctor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings this chapter for mentions of surgery (very vague), mild mentions of dysphoria, repeated use of the word nipple, and Clarabelle being Clarabelle.

"This is seriously a bad idea."  
  
Sighing softly, Silas Silvanis turned around again, a clean new hospital gown in hand, and shook his head. Valkyrie Cain met his eyes.  
  
"I know you don't like Doctor Nye, Valkyrie--"  
  
"No one does! It's a creepy monster!"  
  
"-- _But_ , like I already told you, this surgery is _expensive_ ," Silas said, holding up his hands appeasingly, "Like, thousands and thousands of dollars-type expensive. Doctor Nye is doing it for a _fraction_ of the cost, and it's a _very_ talented surgeon! Everything'll be fine."  
  
Valkyrie gave Silas a stormy look and a grimace.  
  
"Aren't you scared of it, though? At all? I mean, I know you _work_ for it, but..."  
  
Silas snorted. Valkyrie raised her eyebrows, and Silas covered his mouth, apologetic.  
  
"Of _course_ I'm scared of it," replied Silas, "I think I'd be crazy if I _wasn't_! I know about the things it's done! But it works for the Sanctuary now, and people would notice if I disappeared, or if anything happened to me during the surgery. There would be repercussions if it tried to do anything... _weird_...and that's just not in its best interests! Doctor Nye isn't stupid. It knows much better than that."  
  
"Do you trust it?" Valkyrie asked.  
  
"...No, not really. I trust it to do a good job. The rest is faith."  
  
"There's a difference?"  
  
"Of course! Trust has to be earned. _Faith_ is given much more freely, and without very much supporting it."  
  
Valkyrie frowned and stood up from her seat on the stool, crossing her arms.  
  
"I'll be waiting for you in the waiting room the whole time," she said. "If _one_ thing goes wrong, I'm going back in there and getting you out, and I'm smashing Nye's face in," she warned, and Silas smiled at her and dragged her into a hug, patting her back and squeezing.  
  
"I know you will. And I appreciate it.  
  
...But _please_ don't. This is the only job I have."  
  
\------------  
  
Silas hadn't been lying. He _was_ nervous, very nervous, and he didn't trust Nye. He _liked_ it-- he liked it very much! It was a pretty good boss, and an _unbelievable_ surgeon. It was just...also... _sadistic_ , was probably the word. And that reputation preceded it.  
  
But this was an operation that _needed_ to happen, and Silas had been waiting for so many years to find someone who would do it within his budget that he was _not_ going to pass up the opportunity, not for anything in the world. He was breathtakingly lucky that the doctor had offered to do it for the amount that it had-- that, and for 'the experience'.  
  
Doctor Nye was perhaps the only living thing on Earth that Silas would have let perform this procedure on him without any previous experience. Dislike it all you wanted-- but Doctor Nye was simply the most talented doctor the Sanctuary had (with no offense meant to Synecdoche).  
  
Silas was just going to have to have _faith_.  
  
\---------- --------------- ----------------  
  
"Silas?"  
  
The familiar voice made Silas' head pop up from where he'd been zoning out in his chair, and he was already hopping to his feet as Clarabelle crossed the room to him, her long pretty hair already stuffed up into a surgical cap. It made the cap puff out a bit, and it made Clarabelle look a little like a mushroom.  
  
Silas smiled nervously.  
  
"Is it time?"  
  
Clarabelle smiled back, dreamy and unconcerned. She touched his shoulder.  
  
"Yes. Doctor Nye is ready for you now. I'm to take you to the operating room." she said. Silas smoothed down the stiff wrinkles in his gown, worrying at the fabric, and allowed Clarabelle to take his hand and lead him across the room, through the swinging double doors.  
  
"Are you excited?" she asked him as she led him through the hallway, the clinical white light washing out her face. Silas nodded, chewing his lip, and squeezed her hand.  
  
"I am. Nervous, too. It's been a long time coming." he admitted.  
  
Clarabelle squeezed back.  
  
"I'm sure the doctor won't take anything important out of you," she said sweetly, meaning to reassure him. "Nothing you'll miss, anyway. It likes you too much."  
  
They paused just outside of the surgical suite, letting go of each others' hands so Silas could tug his gown down one last time, gathering his courage, and despite all his anxiety, he still managed to flush as his eyebrows raised, flattered and surprised.  
  
"Oh-- do you really think?"  
  
Clarabelle tilted her head, still smiling.  
  
"Don't you?" she asked. Silas tried not to smile, and shook his head, opting not to answer. He could never be disappointed if he never let himself get his hopes up.  
  
Clarabelle just shrugged.  
  
"You should just ask it! At any rate, I think it's waiting for you," she said, and patted his back once, nudging him towards the metal doors and then giving him a little wave before she turned to wander off again. She was actually going to be assisting with his surgery, on loan to Nye for the day, but there was just always something about the way Clarabelle walked that made it look like she had forgotten what she was doing, and had gotten lost again.  
  
What a pair Silas had entrusted his health to today.  
  
  
  
Silas pushed the metal doors open, and Doctor Nye was there to greet him as soon as he stepped through.  
  
"Ah. Mr. Silvanis. There you are," it said. It was just finishing pulling on a fresh pair of gloves, the latex snapping against its wrists, and although the sound was familiar, today it made Silas somewhat nervous. "Are you ready to begin?"  
  
"As ready as I'll ever be. --Um, you can just-- you _can_ just call me Silas, though. You haven't used my last name since you hired me," Silas noted curiously, and Nye inclined its head, giving it a little bobble.  
  
"Yes, but today is business. Today, you are my patient, and I intend to be professional. Please, come along."  
  
He supposed he couldn't argue with that. He allowed Nye to herd him along, towards the gurney and the little table in the center of the room, and he cast his gaze around and tried not to let his nerves get the better of him, aware of what was coming and wringing his hands to ease the tension.  
  
Nye waved a spidery hand and gestured to the little table.  
  
"Undress, if you please. Leave your gown on the table." it said. Silas exhaled very loudly, and then softly groaned.  
  
Okay. Okay, he could do this. This would be _fine_.  
  
Reaching around behind himself, he undid the strings trying the back of his gown closed, but then faltered, holding the fabric closed, still bunched up in his hands, and Nye looked at him from a few feet away and blinked its yellow eyes. Silas hesitated.  
  
"...Ah," Nye said after a moment, as if it suddenly understood. "You have nothing to fear, Mr. Silvanis. I do not differentiate between the human forms. You all look the same to me."  
  
Silas groaned again. His stomach lurched, but he managed a very small, weak smile, and scrunched his eyes closed hard for a few seconds just to steel himself. Then he relaxed his grip, and opened his eyes, and slid out of the gown, with as little movement as possible. It was chilly in the room. He felt kind of sick.  
  
Doctor Nye studied its own smock while Silas undressed, keeping its eyes away and uninterested while he folded the gown into a loose square and put it aside, and Silas was quietly but deeply grateful for its lack of concern while he tried to psych himself up, pressing his thighs very tightly together and folding his arms close over his chest. He looked over at the gurney, and then back at Nye.  
  
"...Okay," he said quietly, "On the gurney now?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Silas got onto the gurney. He laid back, tense and trying to relax, his heart thumping, and took long deep breaths to keep himself from bolting as Nye finally approached him, his eyes locked on its hunched-over form.  
  
If this had been a _stranger_ , if this procedure were being done by a doctor he _didn't_ know, Silas might not have been quite so nervous. There could be comfort in general anonymity, after all. But the situation here was unique, in both Silas' disgust for his own body and his... _unusual_ relationship with Nye, and so Silas' discomfort came from two directions at once. Doctor Nye was both his boss _and_ his crush. It was looking at him, bare as the day he was born, in the clinical light, and no matter what else happened, he was going to have to look in in the eyes again tomorrow.  
  
Ignoring Silas' obvious discomfort, Nye leaned over him, shaking out a sheet, and laid it over his lower half to cover him. It was a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless, and Silas breathed out slowly and calmed. Nye looked him over, but its eyes did not linger.  
  
"Where is that girl?" it muttered to itself, casting a glance around, and as if on cue there came a banging from the hallway and the double doors swung open again as Clarabelle pushed her way inside, pushing a cart full of medical supplies and newly decked-out in some truly horrendous rainbow scrubs. They had gummy bears printed on them.  
  
Dr. Nye lurched quickly backwards before Clarabelle could run it over with the cart, glared down at her, and then sighed.  
  
Despite himself, Silas grinned.  
  
"Be _careful_ with those! Medical equipment is expensive," Nye snapped, jerking the cart away from Clarabelle, and Clarabelle managed to look offended for all of two seconds before she blinked, her eyebrows raising, and a smile curved her lips in an expression of perfect innocence. She batted her lashes and said nothing. Nye shook its head, muttering.  
  
"Hi again, Clarabelle." Silas said. Clarabelle turned to him and beamed.  
  
"Hi again, Silas! You're looking well. Are you ready to have your nipples removed?" she asked. "I've always rather liked mine, but I suppose they _can_ be quite silly-looking, so I can understand if you'd rather just be rid of them altogether. Although...yours are very cute and pink. Are you sure you want them gone? I think it would be silly to cut them off only to have to put them back on again, unless Doctor Nye adds some sort of a sticker function."  
  
As per usual, Clarabelle's train of thought had managed to careen off its tracks in a pretty spectacular fashion for such a short period of time, and Silas' mouth fell open, stunned mortification turning his face a horrible red as he looked to Nye in dismay, silently pleading for it to stop her. Nye met his stare, the two of them sharing a single momentary look of mutual grief, and then the doctor turned and shooed Clarabelle away with flapping hands, cutting her off before she could _really_ get going.  
  
" _Aht!"_ it barked. "Enough chatter! We have work to do, and I am a very busy person. Clarabelle, can you manage to corral your own thoughts long enough to hook our patient up to the monitor?"  
  
"Yes doctor!" Clarabelle exclaimed, blinking rapidly as her one-sided conversation came to a halt. She turned obediently back to Silas, starting to hum something under her breath, and started to set up the monitor, making no further comment about Silas' chest. Small mercies, he supposed.  
  
While Clarabelle hooked him up, Silas watched Nye set up the mask that would be used to deliver his anesthesia and tried not to jitter, excited and anxious and still a bit self-conscious. He almost couldn't believe it was finally _happening_. He'd waited so long for this, it had started to feel like this day would never come. If the doctor actually managed to pull this off, Silas was going to bake it the biggest cake in the world in gratitude.  
  
Clarabelle stepped back, her humming loud and clear now, and Silas listened to her go through the entire chorus of Sugar, Sugar by the Archies before Nye told her to stop. She pouted, but obeyed.  
  
Doctor Nye returned to the gurney again and took Clarabelle's place. It held the anesthesia mask in one hand, and lowered its own surgical mask with the other, so that Silas could see the gash of its mouth, with the dark stitches pulling at its lips, and the deep scar where its nose had used to be. It leaned in close and spoke clearly.  
  
"It is time. You are to take three deep breaths, and then you will be sound asleep, and I can begin my work," it said, yellow eyes unblinking, and it was hovering over him so closely that Silas was struck with the sudden urge to kiss it. He _didn't_ , of course, but the urge was there. "Do you understand? Deep breaths now." it continued, and then it was strapping the mask onto his face, Clarabelle hovering curiously in Silas' peripheral vision, and Silas breathed in. He took one breath, and things started to swim, and by the second he was falling, falling, and then by the third he was asleep...  
  
The soft clink of the gurney beginning to move was the last thing he heard as he went.  
  
\---------------------------------------------  
  
The healing took time. Much more time than the procedure itself, which Silas had been told had been accomplished in only a few hours, from start to finish. He'd been set up to recover in the medical wing, in one of the many beds he himself had helped patients into in the past, and the stitches itched and the pillow was too flat for his liking, but he did his best to be patient and fill his time. He slept, a lot. Chewed regular leaves for the pain.  
  
Clarabelle had been _supposed_ to be the one changing his dressings and checking his drains, but after the first time, during which she nearly managed to pull a line of stitches out and had accidentally made Silas yell like he'd been shot, she'd been banned from her former duties and set to fetching him things instead, like snacks and books he'd brought with him. Another assistant in the medical wing, a pretty blonde-haired woman named Lucy, was assigned to change his wrappings instead, and Clarabelle ended up spending most of _her_ time entertaining Silas with her conversation and bizarre stories.  
  
Doctor Nye only visited once or twice to check on his progress, and by the third day Silas had started to miss it.  
  
He'd be very happy to be back at work once all this was done.  
  
Valkyrie even visited him a few times too, while he was laid up, and although she was always busy and her visits were brief, he was still flattered that she dropped by to see him at all (he supposed that _he_ had stitched _her_ up enough times, after all). She'd brought him a little potted daisy on the first day, and Silas had thanked her profusely, adoring it at once, and made sure to ask Clarabelle to water it. He named it Grace Kelly.  
  
By the time Silas was allowed to take the bindings off, and by the time Dr. Synecdote said the drains could come out, he had really started to get antsy, nearly fidgeting out of his skin. On the day he was finally allowed to get out of the bed and take a shower, a real, wonderful shower, he stood on shaky legs, stiff and a little out of practice, limped his way to the bathroom, looked at himself in the mirror, and cried.  
  
He _bawled_.  
  
It was _perfect_. It was really, _truly_ perfect. And with the benefits of the magical sciences Doctor Nye had applied, once he was done healing, Silas would have little to no scarring at all, a luxury not even afforded to trans men without access to magical care.  
  
Silas was released from the medical wing after that, and finally allowed to go home. Spent a little more time off, healed a bit more. He slept. Read. Watched television. Took it easy.  
  
The stitches came out. There scars were gone. The sight of himself shirtless was alien, but _glorious_ , and just like he'd promised himself, on the night before he was due back at work, Silas baked up an enormous cake and took it into work the next morning. For Clarabelle and the rest of the staff he'd made cookies, but the cake itself was for one person in particular.  
  
He would have thought that Doctor Nye would be getting used to him giving it gifts by now, but the look on its face when he ambushed it in the break room with the cake in his hands was the same amount of bewildered as it always seemed to be.  
  
"Doctor!" Silas exclaimed, catching Nye when it was turned away from him, fiddling with the coffee pot. Nye stiffened and jerked, whirling around, and it gave him a glare out of wide eyes that made him cringe apologetically, a long arm folding up to press a hand over its heart.  
  
"Do _not_ do that!" it said angrily. Silas smiled sheepishly and apologized.  
  
"Oh, shit-- sorry! I didn't mean to scare you. Um-- here," he said, and set the cake and its plate down on the small table in the center of the room. Nye stared at it. Silas gestured to the cake with both hands. "It's-- I got you a cake! ...Uh, well, I made it. It's a thank-you present! For doing such an _incredible_ job, _and_ for not stealing any of my organs while I was under."  
  
Nye's hand dropped from its chest as it came over, bending down further to look at him and then at the cake, and Silas smiled brightly at it, clasping his hands together.  
  
"I know the cake I made last Christmas was too sweet for you, so this one is dark chocolate, with a little bit of molasses mixed into the frosting, and there was a little bit of cayenne pepper in the batter too! Just enough to taste, nothing too spicy." he explained. He knew he was babbling a little, something he always did when he was self-conscious, but he never could seem to stop himself when it came to the doctor.  
  
Nye pulled its surgical mask down around its neck and looked at Silas again. It blinked, and then smiled.  
  
It was not a particularly _nice_ smile. Nye was not a particularly nice _individual_ , and it was not much accustomed to smiling in any way that wasn't meant to mock or unnerve. Its stitches pulled at its lips in a way that looked painful, and its eyes squinted into yellow slits, but despite the somewhat frightening appearance of it, Silas just _thrilled_ , suddenly and furiously proud of himself.  
  
He wound up beaming back at it, and clapped his hands like an excited seal, his heart skipping.  
  
"Do you like it?"  
  
"It _is_ nice to get a little appreciation for the marvelous work I do," Doctor Nye said, lips and stitches stretching, "I'm quite pleased with your recovery as well. Your skin both cuts and heals very nicely, it seems," and then it turned away to rifle through the cabinets, returning shortly with a plastic spoon.  
  
"Thank...you?" Silas said, watching it, bewildered but strangely complimented. Nye pulled out a chair and sat down at the table, folding its long, long limbs up just to fit, and Silas remembered, not for the first time, that this building simply wasn't built with Crenga in mind. He hoped it wouldn't give the doctor back problems down the line.  
  
"You're very welcome. Did you need anything else?"  
  
It looked at him expectantly, waiting-- _get out if you're done,_ is what its stare said-- and Silas hesitated for a few more moments, considering his chances, before he bounced onto his toes and then forward in a flurry of motion.  
  
Nye startled, but Silas moved so quickly that it didn't even have time to react. He ducked in, slipped his arms around its bony shoulders, gave it a single squeeze, and then retreated, already backing towards the doorway as he let go. Nye's small yellow eyes were round and wide, its mouth open as if it couldn't decide what to say, but before it could grab him or stop him or fuss, Silas gave it a smile and a wave and darted back, out the door. He rounded the doorframe and then the corner, and then stopped, raising his hands, covering his face.  
  
He grinned against his palms.  
  
He did hope the cake would end up being incentive enough for the doctor not to yell at him for the hug later.  
  
Worth it, at any rate.


	4. butcher and the baker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A direct continuation of the very first chapter; that body that was in the hallway had to go somewhere, didn't it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings this time for; GRAPHIC descriptions of dismemberment, morbid humor, and lots of blood. Also, very mild and very weird gore-based flirting.

They still had to do something with the body.  
  
No matter the help that Doctor Nye had offered-- which Silas was both mystified by and eternally grateful for-- the fact remained that the two of them were in the Sanctuary after-hours, in the dim and the dark, with no one around but Cleavers, and there was now a corpse lying on a gurney in one of the surgical suites with a timer on it before someone inevitably noticed that the fellow had disappeared.  
  
It was...to Silas, a little bit of a conundrum.  
  
"So..." he began slowly, staring down at the dead man on the gurney with a detached sort of numbness. "How do you, uh-- _usually_ resolve these things?"  
  
Across the room, Doctor Nye was moving back and forth at a brisk pace, gathering instruments, strapping on its tool belt, and Silas watched it go with his arms folded across his chest, trying not to rush it. It took Nye a minute to answer him.  
  
"Well," it eventually said, turning back to face him with an intense light shining in its small yellow eyes, " _I_ have never killed anyone by mistake before. Any fatalities _I_ have ever inflicted have been quite... _purposeful_ , I assure you. But, before you begin to panic, I _do_ have a course of action in mind. Grab a bonesaw," it commanded, jerking its thumb, and Silas obediently crossed the room and took the extra saw from its tray. The handle felt cool in his hands, and he had a terrible sinking feeling.  
  
"We're going to cut him up, aren't we?" he asked.  
  
Nye nodded.  
  
"Yes. It is much harder to move an entire corpse discreetly while it's still in one piece." it said. "It will have to be dismembered before anything useful can be done with it."  
  
Silas pursed his lips, feeling queasy, starting to lose his nerve, but Nye noticed his hesitance before he could bolt and stepped over in front of the door, blocking his path, its spine curved. It reached out again to clasp his shoulder, squeezing once more, and just like before Silas weakened and went slack as Nye ushered him back towards the body. It clucked its tongue encouragingly at him and patted.  
  
"You look pale. Try not to pass out. The work will go much more quickly with two sets of hands."  
  
Silas just stared up at it, morbidly curious.  
  
He'd seen Nye work before, of course he had, many times-- but he'd never seen quite this kind of energy in it before, and he was reminded with startling clarity about the doctor's infamous past in gruesome experiments and torture. It was having _fun_.  
  
"Just catch me if I start to fall?" Silas asked, hovering over the corpse on the sheet and taking care not to look at his face. He'd never dismembered a body before. He'd never even butchered an animal. He wasn't quite sure where to begin.  
  
Doctor Nye tilted its head, and then waved a dismissive hand.  
  
"If I'm not busy."  
  
...Good enough.  
  
Nye's gloved fingers drifted down to the dead man's arm, pressing into the cooling skin at the crook of his elbow, and then it drew back and leveled its bonesaw at the same line it had traced, holding it there as if to gauge something.  
  
"We will make the first cut here," it told him. It gestured for him to copy it, and with a sour taste in his mouth, Silas went round the gurney and rested his own saw against the crook of the corpse's other arm. Nye nodded again. "Good. Hold the elbow straight and saw at a slight angle, that's right, can you feel where the tendons connect the joint? It will save you some effort if you aim for the ligaments instead of the bones."  
  
Nye giggled softly to itself, like it had just thought of something amusing, and then looked back down at its own section of the corpse and started to saw. Blood welled up, accompanied by a meaty sliding sound, and then red spurted and spattered out of the opened skin before slowing to a heavy drip, moving much more slowly without a beating heart to pump it through. Some of it splashed up Nye's gloves and up past its wrists, and it didn't so much as blink.  
  
Silas watched it for a few moments, and then began to cut.  
  
\--------------------------------------------------------  
  
  
Silas felt funny.  
  
Under Nye's instruction, he severed the dead man's forearm from the rest of him, and then the hand from that, just above the wrist joints, and set them carefully aside in a set of little ice boxes. For the first few minutes he'd felt fit to cry, or to throw up, but after a little while of wiping off blood and dutiful sawing, the feeling began to ebb a little, and he settled into a kind of numbness. It was _hard_ work, harder than he would have expected, but Nye filled the stretching time with conversation.  
  
"You know, I haven't had a _real_ assistant in...oh, it must be a few hundred years now," it said in its breathy voice as it cut and pulled. "I have always preferred to work by myself-- it minimizes the fuss-- but I must admit that there is something almost _refreshing_ about this little change of pace. You have a strong stomach. I'm impressed."  
  
Silas blinked, working at a shoulder joint, and looked up in surprise.  
  
"You are?" he asked.  
  
"Yes!" Nye said. "You've neither thrown up nor passed out, and from what I understand about humans, that is _quite_ an achievement for someone unaccustomed to butchery. _And_ you've followed my instructions, and quite well. Why, I would say you positively have a knack for it!"  
  
That should have made Silas call this whole thing off right then and there.   
  
That was-- abominable. That was an _abominable_ thing to say, to think, to say so lightly to someone whilst one cracked through a corpse's knee with a hammer. It was in no way a compliment, at least not a _good_ one--  
  
But Silas _felt_ complimented, embarrassingly so, and as he looked up at Nye with its surgical mask flecked with dark blood, he was _astonished_ by just how flattered he felt.  
  
He met its eyes for a few moments, listening to it titter, and then looked away again. Flustered.  
  
He was disgusted by himself.  
  
"You seem very happy," he noted to it after a few minutes more of sawing. He kept his eyes on his work, but most of his attention on Nye. "Have you missed this? This sort of...you know. Dismembering?"  
  
"Oh yes," the doctor breathed, "I have missed it very much. I enjoy dissection. It's like they say; pick a job you like, and you'll never work a day in your life."  
  
Silas hit a heavy vein, leaned back from the sudden blood spray, and surprised himself by smiling, trying not to squawk. Doctor Nye put its two chunks of a leg into a box, and gave him a conspiratorial glance. It wiped its hands off on its gore-soaked smock.  
  
"It's gotten quite late. Would you like to stay for the torso work, or have you had your fill? ...I can show you a _wonderful_ trick for dislocating the sternum," it told him, in a curious tone he'd never heard from it before, almost like it was trying to entice him. It squinted at Silas over its mask, and he thought it was probably smiling, so he returned the look and surveyed the mess they'd made of the place.  
  
Ice boxes of various sizes were stacked up to the side of the gurney, against the wall. The tarps laid underneath their feet were gummy with blood, and even still some of it ran off the corners, onto the linoleum floor and into the drain at its center, streaking it red. Silas wondered what this room had been before it had been converted into an extra surgical suite for the Sanctuary. It was certainly handy.  
  
"I think...I _think_ I could probably go home soon," Silas decided after a minute, setting aside his saw with its strips of gore stuck between the teeth. His arms were sore, his wrists and biceps burning, and he shook out his hands until the cramping and the pins and needles feeling went away. He gave the doctor an apologetic smile, adding, "My cats are going to need someone to feed them breakfast in the morning. Will you be okay to handle the rest yourself? Aren't you tired?"  
  
Nye laughed behind its mask like he had said something funny, and shook its head, reaching up to scratch an itch on its cheek and smearing blood. It left a grimy thumbprint.  
  
"A surgeon's work is never finished. I have worked on my own for hundreds of years. I think I can manage one more night. You have nothing to fear. You are dismissed."  
  
Moving rather stiffly, Silas peeled off his ruined gloves and turned them inside out, wadded them up, and threw them into the trash. He heard a faint, strange rushing, paused to listen, and then it went away. He cocked his head.  
  
"Thank you, doctor. Seriously. You...I don't know _what_ I would have done without you. You're a _lifesaver_."  
  
"That is a doctor's primary intention, is it not?"  
  
Silas wheezed a laugh and took a few steps over to the door. He rested his hand on the handle.  
  
"Of course. Um...well, I'll see you tomorrow then, doctor. Be careful about the Cleavers?"  
  
"Naturally."  
  
Silas shook his head, turned the door handle, and gave a little wave. Then he pulled back on the door, and that rushing sound came back with a white noise like a waterfall, and his legs went weak and numb, and he realized he was fainting only once he was halfway to the ground, black spots bursting to fill his vision. He was startled enough to laugh, helpless to stop his descent any further, and he closed his eyes tight and prepared for the jarring landing of his head smacking against the linoleum.  
  
It didn't come. His vision stayed black, even once he blinked his eyes open, but he felt something else digging into his armpits, and heard the sound of sneakers being dragged, squeaking soles. In his ear, Doctor Nye sighed.  
  
"Pitiful. I suppose you'll just have to sit in until you can control yourself again."  
  
Silas could do nothing else but let himself be dragged, but he managed an embarrassed chuckle, at least. Well, that was mortifying.  
  
"Shit. Sorry."  
  
"Just sit here and be quiet while I work. And this time, try not to crack your head."


End file.
